


Safe, Not Sound

by JoulesIsIronic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Sheriff Stilinski, Post-Episode: s03e22 De-Void, Post-Nogitsune, Post-Possession, Spoilers, Stilinski Family Feels, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoulesIsIronic/pseuds/JoulesIsIronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the fallout of "De-Void," the Sheriff rushes to the McCalls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe, Not Sound

There are twelve missed calls on his phone, and eleven of them are from Melissa. With shaky fingers, he navigates his voicemail, pressing the cold plastic against his ear, the familiar sensation of dread sinking low in his gut.

_“It’s Stiles, John_ ,” Melissa’s voicemail tells him. _“We have him here. Call me back when you get this.”_

McCall raises an expectant eyebrow, still leaning beside the entry, several feet away. The Sheriff is faintly aware of him as he reaches for his keys, muttering, “family emergency,” as he brushes past the man. He dials as he walks, his past fast, rushed, practically tripping over his own two feet.

It rings twice. Melissa answers with a relieved, “Oh thank god.”

“Stiles?” Sheriff Stilinski prompts, hearing the desperation in his own voice. “Is he--?”

There’s a pause on the other end, as though Melissa is thinking, as if she’s racking her brain for an explanation. “He’s him, I think,” she says eventually. “I can’t really… there’s no believable way to explain it. Hell, none of us really know what happened, either. But it’s him. I think.”

He exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, allowing air to fill his lungs in several plentiful inhalations. His car unlocks with a click and he slides in, gripping the steering wheel for several long moments as he gathers himself. “Thank god,” he hears himself muttering, only faintly aware as his trembling fingers search for the key, shoving it into the ignition on autopilot.

The car chugs to life. With the barest of glances, he pulls onto the street, too emotionally fried to focus his full attention on the road. A small part of his mind is warning him not to drive like this, that he’s a hazard, but the quiet nagging is drowned out by the frantic need to reach his son.

Pressing a lead foot on the gas, he remembers he’s still on the line. “Is he okay?”

He can hear Melissa sucking in a breath. “He’s… he isn’t hurt,” she tells him tentatively.

There’s something off about the way she says it, like there’s something she’s hiding. It forms a lump in his throat, forcing him to swallow several times before he can form words.

“What is it, Mel?”

He turns another corner, a little too sharply. The wheels screech in protest. _One more minute_ , he tells himself, trying to keep calm. Almost there. Just one more street.

“He’ll be okay,” Melissa finally says. “He just… he’ll be okay.”

The Sheriff can hear the uncertainty in her voice, the wariness, the speculation. _Be_ okay, not _is_ okay. Future tense. He pulls to a jerky stop at the curb, barely remembering in his haste to shift the car into park and tun the vehicle off. He can’t remember if he’s shut the car door, but he doesn’t care as he rushes toward the front of the house, not bothering to knock as he wrenches the door open.

Melissa’s there, hovering near the entrance, the phone still clutched in her hand, the call never ended. Her face is contorted, softer, concerned, mouth half-open as if to speak. In his peripherals, he notices Alan Deaton, too, a little ways off, puttering in the kitchen, and he dimly wonders why. The thought is swept away in an instant. None of that matters at the moment.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff manages to pant out, eyes scanning the room for his son. He finds the boy before Melissa can respond, eyes darting to a curled up figure on the floor, back slumped against the front of the couch.

It’s his eyes he notices first. His son’s eyes are open, but blank, staring far off, red-rimmed and pooled with unshed tears. Tattered strips of cloth are clinging to his forehead like a mummy, loose bits clumped around the base of his neck and littering the floor near his feet; his son’s clothes aren’t his, either. There’s something off about them, something fundamentally un-Stiles.

Stiles’ doesn’t flinch when he moves toward him, slower now, trying not to spook the boy. His limbs are drawn, arms wrapped around his legs, quivering. In that instance, the Sheriff doesn’t see his seventeen-year-old; in that moment, Stiles is eight again, curled up in an uncomfortable hospital chair as the Sheriff rushes in, too late. Always too late.

He crouches down until they’re just about eye level, reaching out a cautious hand to his child’s shivering shoulder. “Stiles?”

No response, not even a twitch.

With his other hand, he grips his son more securely, more steadying. “Stiles?” he tries again. “Son, can you hear me?” Again, nothing.

He shakes the boy, gently, trying to rouse him from his shell-shock. “Stiles, it’s me. It’s your dad. I’m here, son. I’m right in front of you. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

A slight movement catches his attention, just a flicker as his son’s eyes find his, the glaze faded. He blinks and the tears break free, sliding freely down the boy’s cheeks.

“Dad?” Stiles whispers. The Sheriff’s heart seizes at the sound, rasped through his son’s lips, broken and haggard.

“It’s me, I’m here,” the Sheriff promises, pulling his son closer, wrapping his arms around him and just _holding_ him. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

This isn’t the nogitsune. Of that, he’s sure. This is Stiles. This is his son. And he’ll be damned if he let’s his kid be hurt again. He’ll obliterate anything that tries.

Stiles chokes out a sob, crumbling in his grip, clinging to the fabric of his uniform. He’s muttering something, the same thing over and over, but the Sheriff can’t hear what it is. They stay like that for a long time, Melissa and Alan at the outskirts of the room, talking amongst themselves with worried hisses.

The Sheriff isn’t dense. He knows he’s missing something, that something must have happened. He’s acutely aware that Scott isn’t here, and that it would literally take a life-or-death situation to wrench the other teen away from Stiles, especially with everything that’s happened. Something bad must have happened, something catastrophic, and he feels strangely numb. He doesn’t have room to deal with whatever it is, not yet, not until he’s taken care of his son.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” he hears Stiles mumbling into his chest, finally able to decipher the words. The Sheriff sucks in a breath, clutching the boy more immensely.

“It’s not your fault,” he assures him, voice steady. Stiles shakes his head into his chest. “None of this is your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Stiles shakes his head again.

With firm hands, he pulls Stiles just far enough away to engage eye contact. The teen glances away. “Look at me,” he commands gently, holding him still until his son’s brown eyes reluctantly meet his blue ones. “You didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t your fault. It’s going to be okay.”

His son’s face twists and the Sheriff knows it’s going to take more than a few minutes to hammer this message in. Days, weeks, months. Maybe even years. But he’ll make sure his son understands that he isn’t complicit, even if it kills him.

He pulls the boy back in, feeling Stiles shudder against him, listening to his sniffling, to his distressed cries. He’s vaguely aware of his own tears, too, as he lets them drip down his cheeks. The idea that his son blames himself gnaws on his insides, a deep, fathomless pit in his chest. There’s no way he’ll let his son live like that.

“It’s not your fault,” he reiterates. Stiles wiggles in his grip, but he keeps hold. “It’s not. I love you, son, and we’re going to get through this. I promise.”

They stay like that until Stiles falls into a fitful sleep in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a li'l 1.3k drabble. Un-beta'd.


End file.
